Naming a Mouse
Charles hated when his cage was picked up. It always made him feel dizzy and he had been dropped more than once which was a very unpleasant experience. He jumped down from his wheel and tried staying as still as he could while he was carried down the halls, back into the big office he slept in most nights.
When the cage was set down safely on the desk he felt free to move again. He got up and ran over to his food bowl to grab one of his sunflower seeds to calm his nerves. He tried biting into one but it seemed to not want to come open no matter which way he tried to peel it. He squeaked in frustration.
He looked over his shoulder at the sound of his cage door opening. Dropping his sunflower seed he crawled toward the open door. As he peered out, his little pink nose twitched, sniffing the air to see if it was safe before crawling out and onto the desk his cage was set on not moments before it was opened.
He sat on the desk then looked up at the blonde girl with the weird eyes he had come to know as Raven, the woman that 'owned' him. He just thought of her as the woman who gave him sunflower seeds and fruit when he squeaked too much or did something she considered to be 'good boy' behavior.
"Charles?" She whispered softly, he liked her whispering better than the obnoxious baby talk she sometimes did when he sat on her shoulder eating fruit or seeds she fed him while she worked. She tried explaining her work to him in that annoying baby talk like he couldn't understand her normal voice just fine. He loved hearing about the work she did but she didn't need to say things like 'Duchenne muscular dystrophy' or 'Huntington's' like they were the cutest names in a baby book. They were terrible disorders and nothing to be joked about.
He always wanted to bite her when she talked that way to him. Did she really think he couldn't understand her or something?
He tilted his head to the side as he waited for her to continue. "Charles, this is Erik I want you to show him your little trick, can you do that?"
He had the urge to bite her for her stupid question. Of course he could do it; it wasn't a trick he just pointed to his name on a page. Since the day he was born he knew that had been his name, he didn't know how but he figured that all mice were born knowing their own names. He didn't understand at all why she called it a trick.
Looking at the man named Erik that he had bitten not too long ago he nodded his head. He just had to get this over with and then he would get a treat, hopefully a strawberry but he'd be okay if it was just more sunflower seeds, preferably ones that were easy to open. He was running low and the ones that were left were like the one he couldn't get into. But he felt his mouth start watering at the thought of the possibility of the sweet fruit.
He was so warped up in his thoughts he didn't notice Raven reaching out to him until her hand was on top of him picking him up. He squeaked and wiggled to try to get away but froze when he saw he was no longer in safe falling distance.
"Here hold him for a minute." She said holding the mouse out to Erik. He just gazed at the creature enclosed in her hand and shook his head. Raven rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand she set the small creature in it.
Charles squeaked and looked around his new surroundings before his blue eyes came to rest on Erik who was staring back at him as if he was waiting to be bitten again. They stayed there staring at each other for a few minutes. Charles wasn't sure if Erik would drop him if he made any sudden movements so he slowly lowered his head to sniff the man's hand, nudging the rough skin with his nose.
This human smelled good, really good, like pine chips and paper from those big, old books Raven sometimes read to him before she left for the night. He lay down and curled up in the palm of Erik's large hand letting the calming scent wash over him. He nuzzled his cheek against Erik's warm skin as he closed his eyes.
Raven looked over at Erik and arched a fine eyebrow seeing the mouse's behavior. "Seems he likes you. Funny since he doesn't normally warm up to people who call him a rat."
Erik tore his gaze from the mouse that was apparently sleeping in his hand and looked over at Raven who had gone back to her search of the bookshelf.
"Got it!" She smiled and turned around to face Erik.
She walked over to the chair she had sat in during his 'interview' and gestured for him to join her. "Just gently put him down on the table please."
The moment Erik started moving Charles woke up and looked up at Erik, staying low, close to his palm so he wouldn't stumble and possibly fall. Hank had moved his hand too fast once and had caused Charles to stumble right off his hand; thankfully he was over the table so he didn't get hurt too bad in the fall.
Erik seemed a lot more careful than Hank or the patients Raven let hold him. He held his hand firmly; fingers spread slightly and curled to create a barrier to keep him from falling then as an added bonus pet him. Charles closed his eyes, shivering as Erik ran two fingers down his back, along his spine, starting behind his ears and then all the way down to the tip of his tail. It was so nice, nicer then when Raven pet him even.
He wanted to cry when Erik set him down on the table and stopped petting him. Maybe Raven would let Erik pet him more if he was good and pointed to his name like she wanted. That would be better than a strawberry so when Raven set the book down on the table he quickly moved over to it and nudged the cover open with his nose.
"Can he open that by himself?" Erik asked as he watched the small mouse squeak and try to push it open.
"I tried to help him once and he bit me."
Charles ignored them and finally flipped the hard cover over. He went to the tabs with the letters on them like they had in dictionaries and grabbed the one for C with his teeth. This was the hard part. So many pages. They were heavy altogether.
He finally got the book open to the Ch's and tapped his paw on his name, 'Charles.' He looked from Raven who was smiling approvingly as normal over to Erik who just stared at him with one eyebrow raised.
"I'll be damned. When did he first do that?" Erik said as he reached out to pet him but to his disappointment Raven grabbed him first.
She placed him on her chest and gently scratched him behind the ears. He loved when she pet him like this but her perfume was over powering and it was making him dizzy. He crawled up to rest on her shoulder, his paws slipping on her silk blouse.
"The first time he did it was when I was looking for a name for him. I had been flipping through the Cs and he jumped on the page to stop me and pointed to it." Raven said no longer paying the mouse any attention. "I was a little disturbed by it at first because that was my brother's name so I tried calling him other things but he only listened to the name Charles."
"Mice don't answer to names though."
"He does."
"I remembered reading something about a Charles when looking at this place."
"Yeah, I opened this place and dedicated it to my younger brother, Charles." Raven picked the mouse up off her shoulder and held him in her hands. He looked up at her and saw her staring at him with that sad look she got whenever she talked about this other Charles.
Erik must have seen it too because he changed the subject. "How's that mouse have blue eyes? I've never heard of a blue eyed mouse."
He looked over at Erik who was staring at him or Raven's chest, he couldn't really tell, either way it made him very uncomfortable. "I don't know actually. It's one of the reasons I kept him. When I found this facility it was abandoned so when I had a tour of it I found this little mouse curled up in the corner of one of the offices. He was tiny and cute and when he opened his eyes they were so blue, they reminded me of my brother's actually."
Charles remembered that day. He'd been so hungry and scared and tired of running from a really big rat that had been trying to kill him that he had just collapsed. He was less than a month old and separated from his family, a family he strangely couldn't even remember, too early to really survive on his own. He saw human shoes heading toward him before his eyes closed and he lost consciousness.
When he woke up he was in his cage and lying on something soft near a pile of fruit and seeds and a thing that dripped water when he licked it. Instead of running around exploring he went straight for the fruit until a human's hand picked him up making him lose his grasp on a blueberry.
"It's certainly an interesting color." Erik commented, his voice snapping Charles out of his memories. "So… work contract?"
"Ah, yes." Raven stood up, placed the mouse on the coffee table and walked over to her desk.
Charles was good and sat where he was put until she came back without some kind of treat for him. That wasn't very fair; he had shown them his name like she had asked. He always got a treat after that. The other two started talking about wages and laboratory rules and all that boring stuff so he just tried to busy himself while he was being ignored.
He wandered aimlessly around the tabletop until a hand closed over top of him. He squeaked unhappily. He really hated when people picked him up like this but this time as the fingers closed around him that sweet scent of pine and old paper surrounded him so he didn't protest much.
The moment he was set on Erik's lap he tried climbing up his shirt but his paws not quite grasping the material well enough. He wanted to sit on Erik's shoulder. He stopped trying to climb and stayed where he was, looking up at Erik who wasn't even looking at him, he was staring at Raven.